Sunday, October 3, 2010

Birthday Celebration


Well i have never been one to shy away from my birthday- I LOVE my birthday. This year I decided to celebrate by giving.
There are so many amazing things people do for others and it was tough to decide my focus, but when I saw this organization I was thrilled. Days for Girls What a great way to empower young women- and I would like you to be apart of it.

Wednesday November 3, 2010 all day (from 8:30-5ish). We will be having a potluck lunch at 12:30. Whether you can sew or not I welcome you.
Here is what you can bring:
- fabric scissors
-underwear (probably a small size the girls are 12-18)
-safety pins
-draw string
-ziplock bags

I will have work stations set up for cutting, sewing and assembly.
If you want to come just for the potluck that would be great. Also if you want to chip in some cash to help cover shipping and supplies that is another way to contribute.
I really want this to be a great celebration. The world is good to me and this is a small way to give and to get together with great people working for a great cause.
Please let me know if you can come.
If you know of others who would be interested, they are welcome.

Thanks, Dara the soon to be birthday girl.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Sisters in Sewing- one of the reasons for the blog

So a while back i heard an episode on CBC radio about a group of women who worked together and made quilts for project Linus. Of course I got misty eyed. I also happened upon Margaret's Hope Chest site and a few more tears were shed. Then after a conversation with my husband's aunt warmly refered to as GAK (great aunt karen) shared a story with us about her daughter who has been sick for about 12 years now. At one point of one of her hospital stays she received a blanket from the Project Linus. Whenever things get rough or if she needs comfort, she goes to that quilt.I shared my desire to do these quilts with the Relief Society in my ward and we went ahead. At the beginning of the summer I made templates and got a bunch of fabric together and handed out cutting assignments. The sisters (both RS and YW) quickly agreed to help. After the squares and rectangles were cut, I assembled packages of fabric for sisters to sew.

I think Marla really wanted to take a nap with this lovely quilt.
One of the sisters in the ward made 3 additional quilts and donated them.
This is Anne, a 12 year old who decided to help cut the squares and rectangles and make a quilt. She worked almost all day on this quilt. Her mom said that she didn't even stop for lunch! She came over and I showed her how to 'birth' her quilt. She even tied it that night. I am so happy for her. When she finished her quilt her mom asked it she was going to make her own quilt and she quickly replied, "no way, it's too much work".
Here are some wonderful ladies from my ward who are tying these wonderful quilts. Isn't it great?

We are going to be doing another evening like this in October. I will be needing more fabric cut and quilt tops sewn for then. I am available to teach basic quilting. I have been thrilled by the response.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Give away

Here is a fabulous giveaway: http://ihavetosay.typepad.com/

I love the quilt along. Our Relief Society is using this quilt top as a project for kids in the Sick Kids Burn Unit. It has been an exciting process. I got a bunch of fabric together and aked the YW and RS to volunteer to cut 4 inch squares and 8 by 4 rectangles. They did a great job. After we did this I assembled quilt tops for the sisters to sew. We are planning to tie these quilts on September 1. This is very exciting. Sitting around a quilt frame brings out the pioneer spirit in me and I totally love it.
I coud probably go on for a while about this concept. How great and different this earth would be with more women taking time to sit, visit, use their hands, build a skill and use this all for good. Imagine.
Thanks Randi for the giveaway the possibility for me to have more material to work with for this cause.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

One of my beefs about cleaning...

I am not sure how many of you fall into this same problem...all the little bits and pieces that are everywhere. I get so sidetracked by them and want to throw them all away. What usually happens is that I put them all in a box to go through later and then have a dreaded box that I put in the basement and takes up space. Not a good thing.... Here is the collection at the end of my room.
I am happy to report that the kids are doing great with keeping everything tidy. I am also pleased as can be with the bigger and bigger pile of giveaway stuff in the family room. The funny part about the pile however is that my daughter is a little suspicious of what is in the pile and so she will occasionally go through it. Must change this strategy- perhaps keeping the pile in the back of the van.

Will include picture on next post- just imagine 15 random items on my bed. What do you do with all these little things. I do not want to micromanage every piece of Lego and puzzle!!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Progress






Here is the result of the boys room. I also did some switching around of some furniture (of course!!). Although the dresser is not white in the boys room, it will have to do for now. I took out the tall dresser from the closet which gives a lot more room. Now that Baby is not wearing onesies and is the same size for everything that child 3 is in things are a little more streamlined.

I was very happy with how much stuff I got rid of.


Benefits of doing this:
-gave lots of great boy clothes and other baby related stuff to a friend having a baby
-got things organized
-have a pile of stuff to return to my sister
-have stuff to give or sell that just doesn't work in the space
-have a perfect organizer for the makeshift kitchen that will be going into the basement as we remodel the kitchen!@! so excited

Good stuff.

I am not sure what to do with the paintings behind the chair in the hall. I have some pretty good wall space upstairs but i have not been inspired yet.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Keeping it Real




Okay so I am going to post these pictures as is. There was no quick tidy before these pictures were taken. This is really good motivation.

THis is just the younger boys room- many more pictures to come.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Getting Rid of the Crap

I am taken by V&Co 's challenge to get out the crap!! I have such a hard time making these entries but I want to try to figure out how to record all my efforts. By writing and taking pictures it commits me even further to this process.
We have moved 5 times in the 9 years of our marriage! I have a hard time getting rid of some items. I moved quite a bit when i was a kid and my mom hardly saved a thing- sometimes i feel sad about this when other people (like my husband) can give our children toys that he played with when he was a baby or kid.
My other crap management issue is that I love to sew, knit and do crafts so along with this hobby comes a lot of supplies. I was amazed at Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew who has hardly any fabric- I on the other hand have approximately 6 totes full plus 10 shelves in the office full.
I love a bargain. I also feel like I never know when I am going to have a sewing emergency and need to whip up a quilt at 10 pm.
Having three boys in all different sizes also poses a problem because I am constantly needing to assess what fits who in what weather. See i have some pretty good excuses. Plus I feel that I already got rid of a lot of stuff. I did, the part is that I constantly need to do this!!!
I have some after shots of two kids room and I will take some before of the other three rooms.
The biggest challenge however is the BASEMENT. The biggest trouble with the basement is that it is BIG. I can fit a lot down there- the problem is I don't need it because it is a lot to manage.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Primary Lesson May first week

I often get ideas form Sugardoodle but have yet to contribute. Today is the day! I read a great idea from one fellow Primary sister and decided to go with it and make it my own. If you would like to take this and make it your own- feel free.
The lesson is the first of the May series covering the concept 'Covenants and Ordinances of the Gospel Lead Me to Jesus Christ'. The first Sunday focuses on this: My faith is Jesus Christ is strengthen when I obey.

I want to teach the children the fourth article of faith.
I have a scripture chase prepared for the senior primary. There are 20 scriptures divided up equally in the OT, NT, BofM and the D&C.

The children will be broken into 4 groups and will have the scriptures for them. They will have to find the words. I will post later how they will put the words into the 4th article of faith- some of them have it memorized already and I don't want them to give it away- they need to come to it on their own.

Old Testament Scriptures
2 Exodus 19:9 27th word
5 Numbers 29:1 8th word
8 2 Kings 17:34 24th word
14 Habbu. 2:4 20th word
17 Deut 28:28 2nd word

New Testament
6 Hebrews 6:1 4th word
11 Galatians 1:6 21st word
18 John 6:14 11th word
19 Romans 15:17 19th word
20 Matthew 22:26 3rd word

Book of Mormon
21 Alma 42:5 33rd word
23 Moroni 8:20 9th word
25 3 Nephi 11:26 5th
28 Mosiah 4:20 18th word
30 2 Nephi 9:45 9th word

Doctrine and Covenants
31 D&C 88:55 4th word
32 D&C 20:43 8th word
35 D&C 124:14 last word
38 D&C 6:10 5th word
41 &42 D&C46:13 8th & 9th

The verse read like this:
We 2 that the 5 6 and 8 of the 11 are first 14 in the 17 18 19 20 21, third 23 by 25 for the 28 of 30, 31, 32 on of 35 for the 38 of the 41 42.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle




I am pretty resourceful and made this quilt for my son out of my stash, a vintage single sheet and a second hand dinosaur flannel sheet I got at my old favourite thrift store. I tried to use crazy mom quilts tutorial for the zig zag quilt, but i obviously didn't get it. Part of the quilt is zig zagged and the other...is just patch worky. By the time I realized it wasn't all good, I figured I just didn't have the heart to unpick it all and just keep it. I will reattempt the zig zag again. i also went to the library and got another idea of how to do the zig zag without triangles. I will show that later.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

There is another give away, burganday buttons through park city girl. Very nice-Verna!!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

http://www.vanessachristenson.com/2010/03/sponsor-giveaway-quilt-shoppe.html
There isn't much greater than free fabric is there?

Friday, March 5, 2010

New Girly Quilt



I am having fun playing around with these colour combinations. My daughter will need a summer quilt and these colours are right up her alley. I am pretty sure these squares will be cut and I will do the modified bento box like this of philistine made: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philistinemade/page2. Wow is she amazing!
We'll see how this progresses!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Together





It's coming together finally!





I started this quilt last year as a Relief Society project. The original intent was to learn three new blocks and frame them on the wall. Well, I seem to have trouble doing three- I ended up experimenting with the yo-yo quilt and then I had all sorts of fabric, so I ended up with this lovely quilt. I put the back on last Friday and now I have been quilting. It is a bit tricky because I hand quilted 4 of the blocks before I decided to put it into a quilt so four of the blocks are extra thick. I am thrilled with how it turned out. I think that I am going to put this is my front hall. My kids were excited to lift it up for me because it is pretty heavy and they felt very grown-up!


This is a traditional log cabin.

This one is Jacob's star. This one was difficult to piece and I would do things differently next time. For more info on Jacob's star check out this quilt along (http://dontlooknow.typepad.com/dont_look_now/quilt-along---josephs-coat/ ).



This one is me playing with yo yo's. I had fun learning how to make them.



This is the back. I found some more Japanese fabric at a new quilt shop (yippee). I used it as my outside 'frame' and also on the back to add a little extra. I have literally a few scraps left from my project and still don't know what I am going to use for my binding?!? This project is pretty organic in the sense that it is always growing and changing!


I am just learning about taking pictures and posting. We had a lot of snow here and the sun was not out very much today.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Learning





I really have not got a very good grasp of this blogging thing. Right now our Stake is having a reading challenge- that of reading all the Isaiah section in the Book of Mormon. I am finding this quite challenging. I do appreciate the podcasts form byu tv on Insights of Isaiah. So for any of you who may want to do a little hand stitching and listen to the podcasts, it's a great way to pass your time. It is one of my favourite things to do- listen to uplifting things while I work away on one of my many on-going projects. I will now try to figure out how to post a link to the podcasts. I know this much www.byutv.org then follow the links to podcasts.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Well I am now ready to launch my blog. I have just read about a wonderful birthday tradition. Every year for her birthday she gets together 'birth' kits for new mothers who do not have much at all. As an effort to celebrate birthday regardless of your age or status, these kits will go out to others.
What an awesome project, especially for a blog that's called Sisters In Sewing. This title has many meanings on several levels: I sew and talk sewing with my literal sister, I sew with others who can be regarded as 'sisters' in my faith and in the global and heartwarming sense of the word.
So here I go- my first official act on my blog- sewing in a group effort with many other 'sisters' to make this a better world.
Dara

Friday, January 29, 2010

Sisters In Sewing

Here it is. We've got a blog 'together'. This is a blog of two sisters who in some respects are very different yet similar. We share a great interest in fabric, wool and many things crafty. This is a way to share ideas, interests and be out there.